What are you reading the week of December 3, 2022?

Heading into the final month of the year, I have hit my goal of reading 50 books this year. Yeah! I'm about to start The Fight of Our Lives by Iuliia Mendel.

Continuing my focus on some of the classic authors, I finished Balzac's Eugenie Grandet
it was a tale of greed. The young naive lovers were driven apart and ended up as obsessed with money as the unbelievably miserly father.

I am about a quarter of the way through Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs. It's a searing, first-person and very well written denunciation of chattel slavery.

And Quiet Flows the Don by Michail Sjolochov Might be awhile on this one. Busy with Christmas activities. Good so far.

I'm reading Claire Keegan's Foster. It's very short (and good) and if I just sit down with it, I'll finish it this afternoon.

Currently working on Shards of Earth and French Secret Projects 3.

Currently reading:
SF/F
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2022
The Trouble With Peace by Joe Abercrombie
Mystery
A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny
Other
Trigonometry for Dummies by Mary Jane Sterling

I finished Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow which I didn’t really care for. Then I read Rules for Being Dead by Kim Powers which I was super excited about but it ended up having two major flaws that dampened my enjoyment. I am still reading way too many books (8-10 books) but I am speeding through and not wanting to put down Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness by Melissa Bond.

Winch
Paul Winchell
4/5 stars
Probably best known as a puppeteer and TV star, the rest of his life was a series of ups and downs especially regarding his mother. But he was also an inventor and friends with Dr. Heimlich. He consulted with him about using hypnosis during surgery and worked on an artificial heart. He also experimented on electric cars and was the first to develop disposable razors among other things. Highly recommended and very interesting!

Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hilbert
Digital audiobook performed by Adjoa Andoh
3***

From the book jacket: Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost – but not quite – dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “get a life,” and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The last item on her list: Do something bad. But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

My reactions:
I was drawn to the book because of the promise of a heroine who faces some significant challenges. I did get that, and some other serious issues, along with the typical rom-com tropes, but the book fell flat for me.

I really liked Chloe and totally understood both her insecurities and her desire to break out and DO things, to grab hold and live her own life. I also liked Red, the super of her apartment building with tattoos, a leather jacket and a motorbike, who promises to help her with her list. He also has some significant issues that aren’t apparent on the surface, and I liked how Hibbert handled his journey. The chemistry between the two seemed genuine and I liked their banter. But there was something about the graphic sex scenes which just turned me off.

I’m still willing to try another book by Hibbert, but I’m in no hurry to do so.

Adjoa Andoh did a fine job of narrating the audiobook. She really brought these characters to life.

I'm still reading Strange Tombs by Syd Moore.

Loving my latest As It Is In Heaven by Niall Williams it is very Irish and beautifully written.

Finished A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny. This one is really dark, but, as always, an excellent read. Added Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls by Charles de Lint.

Eight Perfect Hours – Lia Louis
Digital audio read by Emma Powell.
3***

From the book jacket: On a snowy evening in January, thirtysomething Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car without food, drink, or, even worse, a working charger for her phone. All seems lost until handsome Sam Attwood, also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. After eight perfect hours together, morning arrives and the roads finally clear. The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again, but fate has something else in mind.

My reactions:
Okay, my fault for totally relying on the cover to pick out a holiday romance. There’s nothing Christmassy about this story, and I wouldn’t call it a rom-com either, because it’s missing the comedy part, though it is a romance.

Noelle and Sam both have some serious issues to deal with. Noelle, in particular, is stuck in a pattern, though who can blame her with a mother who is increasingly agoraphobic and unwilling to get the help she needs. On the other hand, Noelle, herself, seems to have readily taken on the martyr role in re her mother to avoid dealing with her own guilt over past mistakes.

Sam actually lives in Oregon, USA, but is in the UK to help his father, who is ill. And both Sam and Noelle have other relationships that maybe are or are not ending. But, there’s no denying a spark between them every time they unexpectedly come across one another.

It's a rather predictable read, but it was fast and held my attention.

Emma Powell does a fine job of narrating the audio version. She kept a good pace and her diction was clear enough that I could easily understand her even when listening at increased speed.

The Five Wounds – Kirstin Valdez Quade
4.5****

Amadeo Padilla can never catch a break, but maybe now, finally, he’s on his way. He’s been chosen to play Jesus in the annual Good Friday procession, and he’s determined to give it his all. But on his big day, his fifteen-year-old daughter, Angel, shows up, hugely pregnant and needing shelter.

The opening chapter of this marvelous character-driven work was a short story in Quade’s collection, Night At the Fiestas. I admit that I could not imagine how she would turn that short story into a full-length novel, but she did a marvelous job of building on the idea to flesh out the characters.

What I wrote about the short-story collection holds true here as well: ”What Quade’s characters share is that desire to “be someone else” and/or somewhere else, but no real means of achieving that. They dream, but are somehow powerless to change their circumstances, falling back on old patterns of behavior, afraid to let go of their past to head into the future.”

Amadeo, his mother, Yolanda, and Angel all struggle with the unfairness of life. With limited education and few opportunities to succeed they stay stuck in a pattern of repeated mistakes. Yolanda has never stopped babying Amadeo, her youngest child and the prized son, whose father died too young. She has never allowed him to learn how to fail and, more importantly, how to recover from failure. He’s like a full-grown toddler in his approach to life. He’s dependent on his mother for shelter, food, gas and beer money. And he is powerless to help his own daughter, whom he’s barely seen since she was a tiny child.

Yolanda deals with her problems by denying they exist. She soldiers on, taking one exhausted (and exhausting) step after another, with no way out of her difficulties. She cannot bring herself to ask for help or to accept it if it’s offered … but who would offer since she doesn’t let anyone know there IS a problem.

And Angel, the poor kid, is genuinely trying her best to finish high school, get the right nutrition for her baby, ensure that the infant is cared for and nurtured to develop appropriately. I loved the scenes where she would talk to him to enrich him and encourage the development of language. But the reader cannot forget that she is still a child herself. And desperately seeking love wherever she can find it.

Quade gives us a marvelous cast of supporting characters as well, from Tio Tive (the family patriarch) to Brianna, who leads the program for teen mothers at Angel’s alternative school, to Angel’s mom, Marissa, all of them are fully realized and add to the dynamic of this family’s difficult relationships.

Despite how they infuriated me, and how often I wanted to just shake some sense into them, I wound up really loving these characters. Some of that was because Quade often gave the reader some hope for a change in circumstances (often short-lived hope, but hope nonetheless). One character sums it up best: Love is both a gift and a challenge.

Just worked in Price's Lost Campaign, as I'm finding Shards of Earth to be something of a slog.

How To Raise an Elephant – Alexander McCall Smith
Digital audiobook narrated by Adjoa Andoh
3***

Book # 21 in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series set in Botswana and featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe and the other employees (partners?) of the agency, as well as friends and relatives.

I’ve skipped a couple of books in the series, because I needed an elephant on the cover for a challenge. I’m sorry I did so because now I know how certain relationships will play out and that will likely spoil the fun for me. Oh well, it’s still nice to visit with friends, and enjoy a cup of (red bush) tea as we ponder life’s mysteries.

As is typical for this series, the mysteries are not murders, but a cousin who has some financial difficulties, or a woman with a straying husband, and also figuring out why the suspension in Mma Ramotswe’s beloved little white van seems to have gone bad … not to mention the peculiar smell coming from the back of the van.

I’ve always liked listening to the audiobooks chiefly because of the stellar performance by Lisette Lecat. But this time the narrator is Adjoa Andoh. Now, Ms Andoh is a talented voice artist and I’ve listened to other audiobooks she has narrated, but this time… Oh my stars, but this is terrible. She exaggerates the accents to the point of caricature, and totally UNflattering caricature at that. ZERO stars for the audio performance.

Enjoyed these three audiobooks ~

A Very Vintage Christmas by Tilly Tennant

Christmas Joy Ride by Melody Carson

***Christmas Legacy by Anne Perry***

All I Want For Christmas Is a Cowboy – Jessica Clare
3***

Young woman with a stressful job and experiencing some harassment decides to go to her family’s cabin in Wyoming over Christmas for some alone time. Misses the turn in a blizzard, crashes her car and is rescued by a handsome cowboy. Of course, they’re now stuck on his ranch for the foreseeable future as the roads are impassable. Oh, and she has amnesia.

You know where this is headed, don’t you?

Cass can’t cook (or, apparently, do much of anything else) but Eli finds her efforts to make pancakes, help with the chickens, decorate for Christmas, etc. adorable. Before long there’s a steamy kiss that leads to some heavy petting and eventually hot sex by the fire. And then the weather clears enough that they can go back to her wrecked car to retrieve her purse and phone and …. Well, you can probably guess what happens.

It's a predictable, fast holiday cowboy romance. And I did so like looking at the cover!

I finished Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs. This is an extremely well written and harrowing autobiography of a woman who, born in 1813, grew up a slave in North Carolina. Jacobs' book, published after her eventual escape to the North, became an important document in the abolitionist fight against slavery. Although not the first slave testimony, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was the first widely distributed slave account written by a woman. Jacobs provides a detailed, horrific picture of chattel slavery. My more in-depth comments are up on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up, I'll finally be reading Wolf Hall, as it's this month's selection for my monthly reading group.

Nona the Ninth came into my grubby little mitts and got moved to the head of the line.

The Shop On Royal Street – Karen White
2.5**

From the book jacket: After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated, as the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart. Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to – even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to with ever again.

My reactions
This is the beginning of a spinoff series from White’s popular Tradd Street novels (which I haven’t read). White has included all the tropes of Southern gothic and chick-lit romance: ghosts, family secrets, an irascible grandmother, enemies-to-friends (lovers), a stereotypical Southern Belle best friend who speaks in cute-n-colorful Southernism.

It was a fast read but completely forgettable. Oh, and White ends the book on a cliffhanger, which I absolutely hate.

The new thread is up over here.